The present invention relates to a filter-tipped cigarette, and a filter for a cigarette, and more particularly to a filter-tipped cigarette having a filter body composed of a plurality of filter plug sections, and such a filter for a cigarette.
Recently, a tendency of favoring mild tobacco taste for tobacco products such as a cigarette has become increasingly stronger. To obtain mild tobacco taste, techniques of expanding cut tobacco for a cigarette to make the flavor or taste milder, and fitting a filter to the end of tobacco column of a cigarette are used.
In the technique of fitting the filter, in order to make tobacco flavor and taste still milder, it has been a practice that a filter body is composed of a plurality of filter plug sections, such as a so-called dual-filter, and activated carbon or the like is dispersed into the filter plug section arranged at a position away from a mouth end portion. In addition, many ventilation holes are circumferentially made in a so-called tip paper for connecting the filter body to the tobacco column. The taste of the cigarette can be made milder by ambient air sucked through the ventilation holes when smoked. Furthermore, as a filter wrapper for rolling or wrapping a filter body, paper having a higher air permeability is also used.
However, in the technique of making tobacco flavor mild by using the ventilation holes, it is necessary to make a larger number of the ventilation holes (for example, to increase lines of the ventilation holes) in order to make the tobacco flavor still milder. This is not preferable from the viewpoint of the external appearance of the cigarette, and presents a limited ventilation amount. When, for example, 4 lines of ventilation holes are made in the tip paper, the ventilation amount which can be accomplished by means of a filter wrapper having an air permeability of 10000 CORESTA units is at most 70%.
On the other hand, the filter wrapper is more expensive as its air permeability is higher, and thus, use of a filter wrapper having an air permeability higher than necessary is not economical.